An everyday tale of family and political life with a dollop of Formula One and various random thoughts on the side.

Friday, January 20, 2012

SNP's "take out the trash day" concession

Good news this evening - the SNP have announced that they accept that the Electoral Commission should oversee the independence referendum.

It's a welcome concession from them, made easier by the reasonableness of Michael Moore, who made it clear he would allow the Commission to report to the Scottish Parliament. It's nice to see people behaving like grown ups for a change.

The timing of the SNP's announcement - pretty much after close of business on Friday, put me in mind of that great West Wing episode, "Take out the trash day" where Josh Lyman explains to Donna that Friday is a good day to put out multiple stories that they're not "wild about" because "nobody reads the paper on Saturdays".

I'm sure the SNP didn't want to make a great big fanfare of their concession and so slipped it out quietly. By Monday all people will be talking about are the two outstanding issues, now that Westminster has stopped grumping about the date. Still to be decided are the single question referendum condition and the SNP's wish for 16/17 year olds to get the vote.

I want to go into both of these in more depth later, but I'll leave you with Professor Matt Qvortrup's comments in the Times today in which he says that such referendums are "rarely a good idea". My preference has also been for a home rule/devo max outcome, but you have to listen when one of the most renowned authorities on the subject urges caution. If it doesn't appear on the referendum ballot, it can still happen, and fairly quickly, by consensus.

But, enough for now. The SNP have done well to agree to the Electoral Commission supervision and we should welcome it.

This was inevitable and now an outside body from the UN will be involved as some of us had hoped from the outset.

Some more good news as Citigroup seem to of realised that trying to mislead business by there scaremongering has backfired on them and the unionists.

15.59 We certainly do not rule out a break-up of the UK over time.

ONS data suggest that an independent Scotland would have a slightly better fiscal position than the rest of the UK [assuming Scotland gets its geographic share of oil and gas receipts]. Scotland could have a viable future as an independent country, although there are a lot of questions that would have to be resolved before that happens.

Camerons wee message boy comes up from London and tells us that they have conceded on the SNPs point about the referendum being oversee from Holyrood and not Westminster.

Did they tell Wallace they were sending the message boy up as he still thinks the referendum is not legal. So one Lib Dem says that its legal and one Lib Dem says that its not legal.

Do the Lib Dems have a clue? Stupid question, do the Lib Dems know what day of the week it is? Course they do Moores meeting was on Friday, details of the meeting were released on Friday, how unusual!!!

Ah the English Electoral Commission! No wonder the Lib Dems are so keen on it, it let them keep that shed load of stolen cash from Mr Brown.

Supposedly independent of Government, isn’t it funny the way it gerrymanders the electoral role and electoral districts to suit whatever government is in office at the time and pays its bills? And has it ever found anybody in breach of electoral rules?

It didn’t suit the Lib Dems so much in 2010 when it did nothing about Phil Woolas and his electioneering high jinks! Elwyn Watkins had to take Woolas to court himself, so where was that white knight of election fairness? Perhaps Caron can tell us?

I listened to Newsweek, the last honest program on BBC Scotland aka London, and Derek wiped the floor with Tankerness plus his lies against the Scottish people. The unionist LibDems need renaming to LibDics what a parcel of rogues.

Good news this evening - the SNP have announced that they accept that the Electoral Commission should oversee the independence referendum.

A spokesman for the Scottish Secretary said last night: “If the reports that the Scottish Government is prepared to allow the Electoral Commission to be involved in an independence referendum are confirmed, this would be a constructive step forward.

It would appear that you were jumping the gun a bit there. Silly really we should all have remembered that Moore has no authority and has to report back to Dave to tell him Alex Salmonds reply and wait for further instructions.